Today marks Erika's sixteenth birthday and her parents bought her a brand new car. She walks into the school parking lot and brags about how her parents not only gave her a car, but also a trip to Italy. People start to drift away, even some of his best friends. As the day goes on, her friends haven't spoken to her since morning. Fed up, Erika asks them what's wrong. Kristie, one of her friends, tells her they can't stand listening to her talk about her flaunted gifts anymore. When Erika comes home from school, her mother asks her what's wrong. That's when he realizes what his friends were trying to say and tells his mother he doesn't want the car anymore. His mother, astonished, asks why not and gets an answer that money can't buy friends, nor can it buy happiness. According to “Does Money Buy Happiness,” by Don Peck and Ross Douthat, I disagree with the connection between money and happiness. Happiness is a feeling that adults experience when they receive a gift, win something and for various other reasons, but does money buy happiness? this happiness that everyone feels? Don Peck and Ross Douthat argue that money buys happiness, but only up to a point in their article originally appearing in the Atlantic Monthly (252). Their article explains the reasons why money can sometimes buy happiness. While some of the reasons given are effective, not all are satisfactory answers for adults who work diligently to earn a living. Money is part of everyone's life, but it is not always the cause of happiness. One of the reasons described as a cause of happiness is income. Don Peck and Ross Douthat point out that “national income appears to be one of the best single indicators of general well-being, explaining perhaps 40% of the difference in satisfaction between nations” (352). This statement explains how income can influence happiness in adults struggling to earn a living. The research illustrates how: “For individual countries, with a few exceptions, self-reported happiness increased as incomes increased” (Douthat 352). While these two statements provide sufficient evidence for why income brings happiness, income itself is not relevant.